A week after Gov. Jerry Brown announced that California will close up to 70 state parks to save money, parks officials are facing dozens of practical questions that could complicate — if not scuttle — the plan altogether.

The obstacles to shutting down parks range from state coastal laws that hamper efforts to close beaches to deciding whether to cite trespassers. Without a clear solution, state Parks Director Ruth Coleman also is considering a plan to simply leave the gates on closed parks open to the public.

“We are working through this process on a trial-and-error basis,” she said. “We know there are liability issues. Our overarching goal is to preserve these resources. That’s our fundamental mission. If we can do that in a way that preserves public access, we will.”

Among the emerging problems:

Beach access laws. Eleven state beaches are marked for closure, including Twin Lakes State Beach in Santa Cruz, Gray Whale Cove in San Mateo County and Garrapata State Park in Big Sur. But under the 1976 Coastal Act, the public cannot be legally blocked from walking along the state’s shoreline.

Any attempt to close off access will require a permit from the California Coastal Commission, said Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission. That could mean months of public hearings, reports and potential lawsuits.

“If people are ticketed for walking across the state beaches, then we are going to be involved,” Douglas said.

Trespassers. Last year, 5.6 million people visited the 70 parks on the closure list. Some of them, particularly hikers and mountain bikers, will simply walk around closed gates. State parks rangers could write trespassing tickets with fines of up to $400 each. But that requires leaving rangers at parks, which could undercut the $22 million in annual savings Brown hopes to achieve with the closures.

Liability. In March, Brown signed a bill, AB 95, that absolves the state from liability if a person in a closed park is injured or causes damage. The new law has not been tested in court, however.

Politics. What if dozens of surfers, mountain bikers or Sierra Club members start showing up at closed beaches en masse? “I’m planning on continuing to go hiking in these parks anyway,” said Tom Taber, of San Mateo, author of “The Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Book.” “Maybe I just won’t carry any ID, and I’ll tell them my name is John Q. Public. What are they going to do, haul me in from miles away on some trail?”

No state has closed state parks on a significant level, in part because of political backlash and practical problems. But California has a larger budget problem than most states. If the closures go through, Brown would be the first governor since California’s state parks system began in 1902 to ever close a state park to save money.

Coleman, the parks director, said she is considering a plan to remove rangers from some “closed” parks while leaving the gates unlocked for the public to come in and out at will. The public could then act as the “eyes and ears” of the system, calling 911 if there are problems, she said.

“Our preference would be to leave a gate open and remove all services — no trash, no bathrooms, no services — and see how the public treats the land,” Coleman said. “If the public treats it well, that’s a sustainable solution. If we find enormous amounts of trash, we would try gating it. After that, if there is illegal use, we’d write tickets. It’s a process of trial and error.”

Coleman and her staff said they are looking at South Carolina, which has had some success closing parks while leaving the gates open.

Only two of South Carolina’s 47 state parks allow public access without rangers present, however, said Marion Edmonds, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

“It’s only at our smallest parks, with the least visitation,” he said.

Among the parks that Coleman’s department chose for closure starting in July 2012: Henry W. Coe State Park near Morgan Hill; Castle Rock in Santa Cruz County; Portola Redwoods in San Mateo County; Moss Landing State Beach and Limekiln State Park in Big Sur; and Samuel P. Taylor State Park in Marin County.

Given the practical difficulties, and the fact that the savings would amount to 0.3 percent of the state’s $9.6 billion budget deficit, some political observers say the move may have political overtones.

“It’s the way you get middle-class voters, older voters and Anglo voters who will never feel the pain of having social services cut off to support the governor’s tax extensions,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California.

Two years ago, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed closing 220 state parks, but dropped the idea after receiving 135,000 calls, emails and letters in opposition.

Closing dozens of parks poses big maintenance costs.

“If you just close restrooms and leave them for five years, nobody believes you will be able to unlock them and start using them,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, executive director of the California State Parks Foundation. “You’ll have to repair the roofs and check the plumbing systems. If you leave trails, they’ll get overgrown. There are costs that way, way exceed the savings.”

Coleman noted her department is hoping for partnerships with cities, counties and nonprofits.

“We’re looking for creative solutions now,” she said. “Our goal is to close as few as possible and to keep as much public access as possible.”

San Francisco attorney Mark Massara, a surfer, noted that anyone written a ticket for walking on a closed beach could challenge it. If a wealthy surfer, for example, sued, and won, under the Coastal Act, the state would be liable for attorney’s fees.

“Twin Lakes State Beach, that’s all moms and children out there,” said Massara, the general counsel for O’Neill Wetsuits in Santa Cruz. “What are you going to do, give tickets to little kids? What are they going to do, build a fence? I think these will be closed in name only.”

Paul Rogers has covered a wide range of issues for The Mercury News since 1989, including water, oceans, energy, logging, parks, endangered species, toxics and climate change. He also works as managing editor of the Science team at KQED, the PBS and NPR station in San Francisco, and has taught science writing at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

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